


Sweet On You

by lilbluednacer



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flirting by way of baked goods, Minor Injuries, Mutual Pining, Paramedic Oliver, maybe read this with a snack you guys, neighbors helping neighbors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-22 20:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19993372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilbluednacer/pseuds/lilbluednacer
Summary: So Oliver has a crush on his neighbor. Possible crush. Whatever. It’s fine.He’s fine. Everything’s fine.





	Sweet On You

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re in the mood for a pretty chill, soft Olicity fic you’re in the right place <3

It’s almost eight in the morning and Oliver is exhausted as he lets himself into his building and drags his body towards the elevator. He usually makes himself take the stairs but after an overnight shift that included a multi-car accident and a child with a burst appendix he thinks he’s earned the right to take the easy way up to his fifth floor apartment.

But then he hears a terrible thump coming from the stairs and he rushes across the lobby to investigate as a young woman crashes against the stair railing and lies prone against the bottom steps. As he gets closer he recognizes the blond ponytail and leather tote bag - it’s Felicity something, the girl who lives across the hall from him. They aren’t friends, not exactly, but she always smiles and says hi to him when they run into each other and he’s entertained the occasional fantasy about her, idly thought about asking her out a few times.

She’s groaning when he reaches the bottom of the steps, rolling back and forth a little the way people move their bodies after they’ve had an accident, testing their limits.

“Careful, don’t move yet,” he orders as he leans over her, trying to assess whether she has a head injury. He holds two fingers out. “How many fingers?”

She squints at him. “Six?”

“Six?” he repeats worriedly.

She twists behind herself and a few steps up are her glasses, resting precariously on the edge of a step but somehow still intact. She grabs them and slides them over her face, letting out a relieved sigh. “That’s better. Oh - hello, Oliver.”

He tries very hard not to laugh at her flushing cheeks. “Hi Felicity.”

“Well,” she says faintly, staring up at the ceiling. “This is mildly humiliating.”

“Of course it’s not, accidents happen,” he tries to reassure her. “But does anything hurt? Your neck, your head?”

“Only my pride,” she grumbles, and sits up with a wince. “I got totally distracted thinking about a meeting I have today and missed a step.”

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks. “You didn’t hit your head?”

“No, I’m fine, just embarrassed,” she says sheepishly. “And frack, probably late now.”

He helps her stand up and hands back her tote bag. “You sure you’re alright?”

She tilts her head back and forth, bends her knees and rolls her wrists. “Yeah, everything feels fine. I’ll probably have a nice bruise on my ass later though, which you did not need to know.”

“Everything looks clear to you though? Nothing hurts? Are you dizzy?”

“No, I’m good, I swear. Thanks Oliver.”

“You’re welcome. Um, you know you can always swing by later if something starts hurting though, I’ll be around until seven.”

“Are you offering to check me out?” she asks, and slaps her palm against her forehead. “I mean, in a professional way, not a sexual way. You’re a paramedic, right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Although you should really go to the ER if something hurts or if you start feeling lightheaded.”

She shudders. “Ugh, no thanks. In college I had to go to the ER after I had an allergic reaction to a pot brownie - not to the pot, there were nuts in brownie, but anyway, yeah, no fond memories there.”

“I can imagine.” He looks her up and down but she’s standing straight, steady on her feet, eyes clear and focused. “I think you’re good, but seriously, please come by later if you start feeling bad, sometimes it takes awhile for the pain to set in.”

She gives him a sweet smile. “I will. I really have to run though, thanks Oliver! You’re the best!”

He watches her dash through the lobby to go outside and Oliver starts making his way up the stairs, exhausted and relieved that she’s okay. He doesn’t know Felicity that well but she’s always been nice to him, always smiling, the kind of person who looks constantly sunlit, like sunshine emanates from their every pore, it’s impossible to feel bad whenever he’s around her. There’s just something about it, some kind of magic she seems to possess, that makes him a little stupid whenever he sees her, stunned anew all over again by her very presence.

He’s always in a better mood after he sees her, just knowing that she’s across the hall has brought him peace on dark days, when he’s spent hours covered in the blood and tears of strangers, people he can’t always save no matter how hard he tries.

So he has a crush on his neighbor. Possible crush. Whatever. It’s fine. He’s fine. Everything’s fine.

He’s on nights so he lets himself into his apartment, takes a quick shower and goes right to bed, and Felicity must be fine because she doesn’t knock on his door when he’s scarfing down a bowl of pasta for dinner before he has to leave for his night shift, but when he opens his door to go back to work there’s a box from his favorite bakery sitting on the floor right outside his apartment, and taped to it is a note scrawled in red pen: _Thanks for helping me out this morning, I’m lucky to have you as a neighbor!_  
_\- Felicity_

She bought him cookies. The girl he likes bought him cookies.

Okay, so maybe he’s not so fine. 

*

He’s watching a hockey game one Sunday afternoon and trying to talk himself out of opening the first beer in his six pack when someone knocks on his door. He pauses the game and stays on his couch, frozen, he can’t remember the last time someone knocked on his door who wasn’t delivering food, except for when Laurel showed up months ago to retrieve the last of her stuff.

But the person on the other side of the door knocks again and calls his name out tentatively, and Oliver vaults off the couch and rushes across his apartment to open his door. Felicity’s standing in the hallway with a bloodstained paper towel wrapped around one finger.

“Hi,” she says sheepishly. “Got a band-aid?”

“What happened?” He ushers her into his apartment and shuts the door.

“I ran out of band-aids.”

Oliver grits his teeth. “No, what happened to your finger?”

“Um…” Felicity suddenly looks a little bashful. “I was cutting veggies for this salad I’m making - or, failing to make I guess would be more accurate - and I sliced my finger.”

He pulls her down the hallway into his kitchen and sets her up at the island. “Don’t move, I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” she says in a small voice, carefully holding her finger so she doesn’t drip blood anywhere.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, people do this all the time,” he tells her. “I’m gonna grab my kit and we’ll get you fixed up.”

She manages a little smile. “Sounds good.”

He rushes to the bathroom, retrieves a pair of gloves and his first aid kit and brings them back to the kitchen. He sits down next to her and snaps the gloves on before undwinding the paper towel from her finger. Felicity winces and looks away; Oliver leans forward and turns on the sink before carefully picking up her wrist.

“I’m going to wash this, okay?”

She nods and makes a little sound behind clenched teeth like she is not enjoying this at all but she leans forward to hold her finger under the water until her cut is clean. He dries it, dabs on a tiny bit of neosporin and bandages her finger.

“All done,” he announces, pulling off the gloves and tossing them in the trash.

“Thank you,” she says gratefully. “I swear, I’m never trying to cook again.”

“It just takes practice,” he says, packing up his first aid kit.

Felicity examines her bandage. “Yeah, I think I might be the exception to that. I’m a coder, I’m better with my brain than with my hands.” Her eyes fly shut and she smacks her forehead with her palm. “Okay, that didn’t even make any sense, I’ll get out of your hair now and stop bothering you.”

“You could never bother me,” he says softly.

“Oh,” she replies, blinking owlishly behind her glasses. “Well, thank you. Sorry to make you work on your day off.”

“I don’t mind.”

Felicity smiles. “Okay, well, um, I should get going. Thank you for helping me.”

“Of course.” He puts a light hand on her shoulder. “Here, I’ll walk you out.”

“Thanks again,” she tells him when he opens the door for her. “Seriously, feel free to send me a bill.”

He snorts. “I’m not going to charge you for a band aid, Felicity.”

“Okay, fair enough.” She sighs and tilts her head towards her door across the hall. “I better go clean up the mess I left.”

She doesn’t hug him but she offers him a gentle smile as she crosses the hall, and then he blurts out, “Hey, Felicity?”

She stops with her keys halfway to her door. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. For the cookies the other day.”

“Oh!” She unlocks her door and grins. “Consider them payment for services rendered.”

He laughs. “If you’re paying in desserts I might have to reconsider charging you for the band aid then.”

She raises a playful eyebrow at him. “I think I could handle that.”

He leans against the doorway and holds one hand up as she smiles again and wiggles a few fingers at him before slipping into her apartment and shutting the door. He goes back into his own apartment and screw it, he thinks, it’s five o’clock somewhere, so he opens up his first beer of the day and wishes he had one of those cookies she bought him but he ate them all already.

*

When Oliver leaves to meet his parents and Thea for brunch the next morning he almost trips over a white bakery box sitting on the floor outside his front door, another note taped to it. He squats down and picks it up, going back into his apartment to set the box down on the counter while he reads the note:

_Thanks for the house call yesterday - is it technically a house call if I call upon your house? Anyway, consider this my payment for the pleasure of your services!_  
_\- Felicity_

*

Because he’s on nights he’s used to not seeing Felicity much between running into each other when he’s coming home in the morning and she’s leaving for wherever she works. When he does run into her they usually chat for a few minutes but it’s not exactly quality time, what with her half awake and rushing to the office and him dead on his feet after a night shift.

He thinks about it sometimes, when he’s home alone on off days, wondering what she’s up to, of getting over himself and asking her out already, or even just leaving a bottle of wine or something outside her apartment for her. He doesn’t know what’s stopping him exactly. Maybe it’s that he’s not that guy anymore, the one who used to blow all his parents’ money on partying and changing schools every other semester, always in search of the next best thing, never ever satisfied even when he could’ve bought literally anything he ever could’ve wanted.

There’s something about just letting it be, this thing between them, delicate and new and sweet. He likes the surprise of running into her in the elevator, the hallway, the sidewalk outside. He likes the easy way they flirt without being serious, just little looks and touches during casual conversation, the occasional innuendo from Felicity that always makes him laugh and her wince helplessly. It’s nice, having a friendly face around, and if they never go out then he never has a chance to inevitably ruin it between them and then have to move out lest things be awkward forever.

Or maybe he’s just a coward.

*

“Reset the router!” Thea’s voice screeches through his phone.

Oliver rubs his forehead, he seriously regrets offering to read Thea’s social studies paper. He doesn’t even know why she wants him to, it’s not like he ever got anything higher than a B in high school. “I _did_.”

“So do it again!”

“Thea, I don’t know what to tell you, the stupid thing won’t download!”

“Ol _lie,_ you said you would help me!”

“I’m trying, okay?”

“Try harder!”

Oliver presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Give me a few minutes to figure this out, I’ll call you back, okay?”

Thea sighs into the phone like he’s being a terrible disappointment to her. “Okay.”

He hangs up and restarts his laptop for the third time but he still can’t manage to get Thea’s paper to download and just when he’s starting to feel really stupid and desperate he remembers that Felicity has some kind of office job, she can probably figure out how to get Thea’s paper to download.

It’s a Sunday afternoon, she might even be home. Oliver vaults off the couch and scoops up his phone and keys. He jogs across the hall to Felicity’s apartment and knocks with one fist. “Hey, Felicity? It’s Oliver.”

After a moment he hears the scuffle of feet on the floor and then her door swings open revealing Felicity, ponytailed like always, her cheeks a little pink, wearing a sports bra and blue leggings.

“Oliver!” she exclaims. “What’s up, what’re you doing here?”

“Hey, is this a bad time?”

“No, not at all!” She gives him a conspiratorial grin. “I hate doing cardio anyway, please give me an excuse to stop.”

He chuckles and tries very hard to not look down at her cleavage. “Any chance you’re good with computer stuff?”

To his surprise she starts laughing, and when she sees how baffled he is she gives him an apologetic smile. “Uh, well, I went to MIT, so yeah, I’m not so bad. Why, your internet go out or something?”

“Oh wow, cool, I uh, did a semester at BU. No, my uh, my little sister sent me something through drop… drop something but I can’t figure out how to download it and I feel like an idiot.”

To his intense relief she gives him a sympathetic look and reaches out to rest her fingers on his wrist. “You’re not an idiot. Let me just grab a shirt and I’ll show you how to do it, okay?”

“Thank you.” He slumps against the doorway in relief and waits for her to put on a top.

She comes back a minute later wearing a loose grey hoodie, her key ring looped over one finger. “Okay, let’s see your laptop.”

Oliver leads her into his apartment and over to where his laptop is sitting on his coffee table. Felicity sinks onto his couch and gestures at the computer. “May I?”

“Please.” Oliver sits down next to her and watches her pick up his laptop and open it up. 

She smooths her fingers lovingly across the keyboard. “Hello sweetheart.”

Oliver chokes on a laugh. “Are you talking to my computer?”

Felicity taps something out on the keyboard. “We’re just getting acquainted.”

“Would you like me to leave you two alone?”

She stares at the screen, fingers flying across the keys as she types. “It’s not nice to tease someone who’s helping you,” she says lightly, and spins the screen around so he can see it. “Is this what you were trying to download?”

It’s a word document, titled _Thea’s Super Awesome Paper_. Oliver stares at it in shock and then at Felicity. “You - you did it that fast?”

She gives him a serene smile. “Mhmm.”

“That’s… remarkable,” he says stupidly.

“I believe the words you’re looking for are thank you,” she says. “That’s what you get when you go to a pro.”

He breathes out a laugh. “I certainly can’t complain about the service. You’ll have to send me a bill, I have no idea what professionals charge.”

She smiles as she gets up from the couch. “I like red wine.”

He picks up a nice yet modestly priced Cabernet the next night and leaves it in front of her door when he comes home from his shift. He doesn’t leave a note, he figures she’ll know who it’s from. 

He’s proven right - the next time he leaves to go to work, he finds a post-it note on his door, her now familiar handwriting covering it: _Thanks for the wine, it looks great!_  
_-Felicity_

*

He doesn’t see Felicity again until next Saturday afternoon, when she knocks frantically on his door and shouts out his name. He rushes across his apartment, imagining Felicity hurt, Felicity sick, Felicity desperately needing medical attention, but when he opens the door she’s waiting on the other side looking perfectly fine, her hair pulled back in its usual ponytail, dressed in skinny jeans and a black sweater that’s slipping off one shoulder.

“Please tell me you can cook!” she blurts out.

He stares at her, bewildered. “I can cook.”

She squints at him. “Can you actually cook, or are you just saying that?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a culinary genius but I’m decent.”

“Oh thank god.” Felicity slumps over in relief. “Okay so here’s the deal. My mother, who I love very much but also makes me a little crazy, might maybe a little bit be under the impression that I have, let’s say, been working on my culinary skills, and I _may_ have encouraged it to get her to stop giving me shit about how I’ll never catch a man if I can’t even cook a chicken” -

“Felicity.” At this point he’s laughing so hard he can barely breathe. “How can I help?”

“She called me from the airport. She booked a flight from Vegas to surprise me for the weekend, and then she was like, oh, we don’t need to go out for dinner tonight, you know how to cook, right?”

He gives her a sympathetic smile. “How much time do we have?”

Felicity closes her eyes in resigned horror. “Barely three hours.”

“What do you have in your fridge?”

“Baby carrots and a carton of expired yogurt.”

He puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Let me just grab my keys, I think we have enough time to run to the store and whip something up.”

Felicity’s eyes fly open. “Really?”

“Well,” he says, pretending to think it over. “It is gonna cost you.”

“I will buy you literally any dessert you want,” she says quickly.

He grins. “Deal.”

He runs back into his apartment to grab his keys and wallet and he and Felicity take the elevator down to the garage. He walks her to the Bentley and to his relief she gets into the passenger seat without asking him how the hell he can afford the car on a paramedic’s salary. He drives them to the nearest grocery store and Felicity follows him inside, staring down at her phone as she tracks her mom’s flight.

“Okay,” she says, sounding tense. “What’s the plan here?”

“Quick and simple,” he decides. “Salad, chicken, pasta?”

She looks at him. “You just listed three things I absolutely cannot make without risking a stab wound or burning down my apartment.”

Oliver winks at her and picks up a shopping basket. “Your mom doesn’t need to know that.”

He ushers her through the store as he selects ingredients: mixed greens, a package of pre-cut veggies, salad dressing, a box of penne, olive oil, garlic cloves, shredded cheese, a package of organic chicken breasts, a few spices. They checkout and Oliver carries the bags out to the car as Felicity skips along next to him. He drives them back to their building and they take the elevator up to their floor. Felicity digs her keys out of her pocket and unlocks her door for them.

Her apartment is set up about the same as his, a little foyer that leads to a living room, the kitchen off to one side. He carries the grocery bags into the kitchen and sets them down on the counter, Felicity running in behind him to turn on the lights. She wrings her hands and then points to the bottle of wine he left for her, sitting in the center of her table unopened.

“At least I have decent wine,” she says, reaching up to open a cabinet.

Oliver starts unpacking the food. “You haven’t tried it yet?”

She shoots him a smile. “I wanted to save it for something special.”

He gets a pot of salted water on the stove to boil, turns the oven on, and glances over at Felicity, who’s washing her hands at the sink. “Where do you keep your baking dishes?”

She gives him a blank look and Oliver shakes his head, grinning, and runs across the hall to retrieve a glass Pyrex dish from his own kitchen. When he comes back Felicity’s making salads, her sleeve rolled up to her elbows. “I figured I couldn’t mess up putting lettuce into bowls,” she explains.

“Looks good,” he says, and sets the dish down on the counter.

The water has started boiling, Oliver dumps in the uncooked noodles and sets a timer for ten minutes before washing his hands. He rinses the raw chicken breasts, coats them in olive oil and a few different spices and takes the oven mitt Felicity hands him. When the oven beeps he slides the chicken in and sets another timer; Felicity comes up next to him to open the salad dressing and carry it over to the table as her phone beeps.

“Her flight just landed,” Felicity announces anxiously. “How much time do we have?”

Oliver shrugs. “Forty-five minutes?”

“Oh thank god, okay.” She walks back over where he’s leaning against the counter and hops up onto it, her legs swinging. “Thank you, by the way. Seriously, this is incredibly nice of you.”

He stares at her shoulder, the sliver of bare skin exposed by her sweater. “I really don’t mind, I wasn’t doing anything anyway.”

“Still, it’s very nice of you to let me use you for your cooking skills - and by use, I mean, greatly appreciate your talents and feel incredibly grateful that you gave up a hot date or a workout or whatever someone as hot as you likes to do on the weekend… oh god, I’m gonna stop now before I completely humiliate myself” -

“Felicity.” He reaches out before he can stop himself and cups her shoulder. “I really did have nothing to and it’s not exactly a hardship to help out my very pretty neighbor cook something I can basically make in my sleep. You don’t have to keep saying thank you, okay?”

He swears, her eyes sparkle as she looks up at him. “Well you are getting cookies out of it.”

“See? I’m the one who should be thanking you.” 

The timer on the pasta beeps and Oliver guides Felicity through draining the noodles. He has her transfer the pasta in the collender back into the pot and stir in the shredded cheese while the noodles are still hot so it melts, chops up some garlic and stirs it in with a bit of olive oil, and covers the pot to keep the heat from escaping. He takes the baking dish out of the oven so he can turn over the chicken breasts, slides it back in and sets another timer for twenty minutes.

“You don’t have to get her from the airport, do you?” he asks, searching her cabinet for plates.

“No, she’s taking a car. She likes to, quote, get down with the locals.” Felicity rolls her eyes.

When the chicken's almost done Oliver helps Felicity spoon the pasta into bowls and opens the bottle of wine for her. The oven beeps and Oliver turns it off, takes out the baking dish and cuts open a chicken breast to show Felicity how to tell when the meat is fully cooked.

They’re just setting plates down on the table when someone knocks on the front door; Felicity’s head snaps up and she shoots him a panicked look. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I thought you’d have enough time to get out of here before she showed up!” she blurts out. “I’m so sorry, do you want to sneak out the fire escape? You can totally go out the fire escape, I’d understand, really.”

“Felicity!” He hears a woman shouting from the hallway. “Baby, are you home?”

“Felicity, it’s fine, I can handle meeting your mother,” he tells her.

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Okay, it’s your funeral.”

She smooths back a stray lock of hair that’s escaped her ponytail and rushes over to the front door to open it. “Hey Mom.”

“Babygirl!” The women who throws herself at Felicity has long blond hair, she’s wearing a skintight fuschia cocktail dress and platform acrylic shoes. She gives Felicity a bear hug and then she sees Oliver and steps away, giving him a curious look. “Baby, who the hell is this beautiful piece of man?”

Oliver swallows a laugh and walks towards her to hold out his hand. “Oliver ma’am, it’s nice to meet you”.

“Oh please, I’m way too young to be called ma'am mister, it’s Donna.”

“Donna,” he repeats, shaking her hand.

She gives him a silky smile and runs her hand up his bicep. “Well Oliver, it’s an honor to meet this secret boyfriend my daughter neglected to mention.”

“Mom!” Felicity yelps. “Oliver’s just my neighbor.”

Donna’s hand stills on his arm. “What?”

Felicity looks like she wants to melt into the floor. “Oliver’s just my neighbor, he was uh” -

“I loaned her a baking dish,” he jumps in. 

“Mhmm.” Donna removes her hand from his arm and gives him a conspiratorial smile. “Whatever you say.”

“Oh my god,” Felicity murmurs under her breath.

“I should go, I’m sure you two want to catch up,” he says. “Felicity, I’ll catch you later?”

“Okay,” she says, and mouths _thank you_ behind her mother’s back.

“Are you sure?” Donna looks disappointed. 

“Mom, Oliver has his own life, I’m sure he has better things to do on a Saturday night then eat with us,” Felicity says. 

He doesn’t actually but he doesn’t really want her to know that’s how pathetic his social life has become since he and Laurel broke up months ago so he lets her walk him to her door, surprised when she reaches up to hug him.

“Sorry, I’m not trying to kick you out,” she whispers. “If you stay she’s definitely going to think you’re my boyfriend and she’ll interrogate you all night.”

“I get it,” he whispers back. “See you later?”

She smiles as she pulls away. “Yeah.”

“Have a good time with your mom.”

She lets out a long suffering sigh. “I will do my best.”

*

Oliver stumbles down the hallway Monday morning, sick to his stomach, his eyes burning. The dead girl’s face floats in his mind as he digs through his pockets for his keys. If only they’d gotten there a little earlier, if only she’d called someone before she decided to overdose, if only her parents had found her earlier, if only if only if only, but she’s dead and no matter how many times Oliver breathed into her mouth and pressed on her chest it didn’t bring her back, he was too late, he couldn’t save her.

A crunching noise pulls him out of his thoughts and when he looks down his foot has stomped over a crushed bakery box. He crouches down and flips up the lid, revealing smashed bits of chocolate chip cookies. It’s enough to make him drive his fist into his door, because he’s useless, he’s the same stupid careless guy he’s always been and he couldn’t save that girl and now he’s ruined Felicity’s cookies, he’s a failure, and he slams his fist into the door again and again and again -

“Oliver?”

He whips around, Felicity’s standing in the hallway dressed for work, looking terrified. “What’s wrong?” she asks him tremulously.

He’s overwhelmed by the conviction that if he tries to speak he’ll just cry so he covers his face with his hands and tilts his head back against his door. “Sorry,” he chokes out. “I just - bad night.”

“Oh,” she says softly. “Want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head.

“Okay. Do you want a hug?”

He drops his hands, surprised, but she’s just standing there, arms a little outstretched, and he shuffles forward and falls into her. She wraps her arms around him and Oliver bows forward, presses his face into her shoulder and swallows back a sob.

“I couldn’t save her,” he confesses hoarsely.

“Who? Did you guys lose someone?”

“Yeah.” His voice cracks

Felicity rubs his back. “I'm sorry. I’m sure you did everything you could.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

“You can’t save everyone,” she says softly. “I don’t think anyone expects you to.”

“It still feels bad,” he protests grumpily.

“I know,” she murmurs.

“I stepped on your cookies,” he confesses. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh Oliver.” Her voice is painfully sympathetic. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”

He pulls away from her and turns his head to surreptitiously wipe his eyes with his sleeve. “Yeah.”

Her mouth twists to the side. “Are you gonna beat yourself up over this all day?”

“Probably,” he mutters.

She sighs. “I need to get to a meeting, but. Okay, here, you go to sleep, watch a movie, whatever, just try not to drown in your guilt complex for a while. I’m gonna pick up takeout on my way back from the office and we’ll have dinner at my place tonight, okay?”

He blinks teary eyes at her. “Really?”

“Well I think we established that cooking isn’t my forte, I was going to get takeout anyway. Besides, you totally saved me with my mom, she was raving about that chicken all night, let me return the favor, okay?”

He’s too tired to argue. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeats firmly. “Eight o’clock, my apartment.”

He nods solemnly. “I will be there.”

“You better.” She affectionately tweaks his cheek. “I know where you live, after all.”

Felicity goes to work and Oliver goes inside his apartment, drags himself into his room and strips out of his uniform. He makes a quick egg scramble, eats in front of the morning news and barely makes it to bed before he falls asleep. When he wakes up again it’s after six, the sun starting to go down outside his window. He takes a hot shower and changes into an olive green henley and pair of jeans, and then sits on his couch in the living room staring at the clock. At precisely eight he pockets his keys and phone, locks his door and goes across the hallway.

Felicity answers right after he knocks, like she was waiting for him. She must have just gotten home, she’s still wearing the same polka dot printed dress she had on this morning and her bag is resting on the entry table. “Hey, come on in, how’re you doing?”

“A little better.” He leans into her hug, letting himself relish the warmth of her body, the smell of her hair, breathing her in before pulling away.

“Sorry, I just got back, I bet you’re hungry.” She reaches up and unclasps the lanyard around her neck, moving around him to drop it into a little dish on her entryway table.

Oliver catches a glimpse of the ID badge clipped to the lanyard and picks it up to examine it. “You work at Q.C.?”

“Yeah, why?”

He wastes five whole seconds thinking about lying to her and then realizes he doesn’t actually want to do that, it’s not worth it. She’ll find out eventually anyway. “It’s my family’s company.”

She stares at him. “It’s - you’re Oliver _Queen?_ Like, Mr. Queen? I mean obviously, not _Mr._ Queen but… oh my god, _you’re_ the infamous son who refused to join the company?”

“More like, never pulled the kinds of grades needed to get into business school,” he mumbles.

“Wow,” she says faintly. “Sorry, I just need a second to adjust, it’s not like you ever expect the guy living across the hall to be a billionaire.”

“I’m not! I mean, yeah, I’ve got a trust fund but I support myself, I’m… I guess you could say I’m what my mother disdainfully refers to as _middle class._ ”

“Wow,” she says again. “Sorry, it’s just, I don’t know, you seem so. Normal.”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry, am I being weird? I’m being weird, it’s just, I’ve never met a billionaire before, I mean, I’ve met your parents but I work under Walter and it’s one thing to meet the CEO but it’s another thing to be living across the hall from the CEO’s son.”

“It’s really not a big deal.”

“Spoken like a true rich person.” She flinches. “Sorry. God, I’m messing this up, I just, I guess I’m realizing that we don’t even know each other that well.”

“Oh, I don’t know, we’ve met each other’s mothers, that counts for something right?”

To his relief she laughs, and reaches for his hand. “Yeah, that’s a good point. So what happened, you decided to stick it to the man and become a paramedic instead of letting yourself be groomed for the cutthroat world of business?”

“More or less.”

“Do you like it though? Your job?”

“I like helping people,” he says quietly, and tries very hard not to think about that girl, her cold skin, her blue lips, her mother screaming her name.

Felicity gives him a soft kind of smile. “Yeah, I think I knew that already. So, you hungry?”

“Yeah,” he answers, feeling relieved, like he’s passed some kind of test.

“Is Thai okay?” she asks, padding in bare feet to the kitchen, leaving him to follow. “I grabbed some wine too, you interested?”

“That sounds great.” He opens the bottle for her and pours while Felicity unpacks containers of food.

“Here.” He passes her a glass and Felicity brushes his hand with her fingers as she takes it. “Hey, Felicity, I just…”

She reaches out with her free hand and rests its on his forearm. “What?”

He stares down at her, this girl who lives right across the hall from him, a girl who leaves him cookies and smiles every time she sees him and invited him over for dinner just because he was having a bad day.

“Do you think… can I take you out sometime?”

She blinks at him. “Like a date?”

He takes a deep breath. “Yeah.”

Her fingers curl around his arm and then she’s smiling. “Only if you let me pay for dessert.”

He pretends to think about it. “I guess I could handle that.”

She giggles. “Okay then.”

“Okay.” 

He’s still standing right in front of her, her hand on his arm and her bright eyes shining with excitement, and Oliver bends over her, flicking his eyes up to catch her gaze to make sure he’s reading her right, and dips his head down to brush his lips against hers. Felicity sighs against his mouth and kisses him back, her soft lips parting open so he can brush his tongue against hers.

She’s the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.


End file.
